A Sermon Delivered in the Methodist Chapel, Saint John, N. B., On Sunday, 15th April, 1821: When a Collection Was Made in Aid of the Funds of the ... Auxiliary Bible Society (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from A Sermon Delivered in the Methodist Chapel, ...)
Excerpt from A Sermon Delivered in the Methodist Chapel, Saint John, N. B., On Sunday, 15th April, 1821: When a Collection Was Made in Aid of the Funds of the New-Brunswick Auxiliary Bible Society
But as opinion is not knowledge, nor conjecture principle, and as nothing more is known of a fubjeé't than what is proved; fo nothing here is known with certainty except what may be collected from the intimation of the Jewith Law-giver z - he intimates that the rudiments of lan guage were given to man by his Creator; for Adam named all creatures.
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He was born in 1760 (61) in Rockbridge County, Virginia, United States. He was the son of a devout Presbyterian who may have been the William Pressley, Sr. , who was living in Rockbridge County, Virginia, at the close of the eighteenth century.
Education
As a young boy he attracted the attention of his pastor, the Rev. William Graham, first rector of Liberty Hall Academy, who took the lad into his family and gave him the foundation of a liberal schooling. He was for a while a student at Liberty Hall (forerunner of Washington and Lee University).
Career
For two years (1782 - 84) he was an instructor in mathematics and the classics at Washington and Lee University. His favorite subject was Greek literature, and he sometimes entertained his pupils by spouting, with astonishing vehemence, the orations of Demosthenes, in Greek. He was a classical tutor for a time at Annapolis and at Georgetown, Maryland, and in December 1788 became principal of Salem Academy in Bardstown, Kentucky. For some three years, beginning in 1792, he was principal of a classical school in Georgetown. On February 25, 1796, he became principal of the "male department" of Baltimore Academy, a development from the ill-fated Cokesbury College. Presently, the Academy burned and Priestley organized and conducted an academy in Paul's Lane, Baltimore, from 1798 to 1803.
In 1803, he became principal of the newly founded Baltimore College, but it is uncertain how long he continued in this position. In 1809, he became principal of Cumberland College, Nashville, Tennessee, the forerunner of the University of Nashville which, in turn, became Peabody Normal College, now George Peabody College for Teachers. He was recommended for this place by his former pupil, Felix Grundy.
In the meantime, Priestley had bought a farm of 226 acres from Andrew Jackson and to this tract, six miles above Nashville, he retired. When Cumberland College reopened in December 1820 he again became its principal, but died some two months later.
(Excerpt from A Sermon Delivered in the Methodist Chapel, ...)
Personality
Priestley was a firm disciplinarian.
Quotes from others about the person
One of his former pupils at Liberty Hall said of him: "He was indeed a very eccentric, though a very amiable man, and married a woman as eccentric as himself. "
Connections
He had a wife. They had a daughter and three sons, one of whom was killed at the battle of New Orleans.